Geocaching Fun in Third Grade

I know it has been a while since I have posted on this blog. I took a bit of a hiatus from geoacaching with the students and just started back up again. Fall in Florida has been unseasonably hot - too hot to be outside all day long with four classes of students. Here is a summary of our first activity of the year.

Third graders were excited to participate in their first geocaching activity of the year. After spending a day researching the basics of this treasure hunting game along with learning how GPS technologies work, the students were anxious to use handheld GPS to locate caches hidden across the campus.

Working with partners, students acquired satellites and navigated through the various screens to program the GPS to locate a specific cache. After discussion about how to use the built-in compass, students set off on the hunt.

Once caches were located, students removed envelopes containing pictures and facts about building toys from the 20th century. As students are using K’Nex in their study of motion and design in their classrooms, I thought they would be interested in learning about other building toys used throughout history.


Students returned to the lab and used an online tool to create a timeline. The use of timelines will be extended when the students begin studying European explorers.

USA Landmark Google Earth Tour

Finally created my own tour in Google Earth. I've played around with the program for years, have used it in my teaching of geography, and have allowed students to explore the program. I was determined to have the students use it more this year. The first grade students kicked off their America unit this week, so I decided to take them on a tour of ten US landmarks. Starting off at our school, students visited the:

White House
Lincoln Memorial
Washington Monument
Statue of Liberty
Empire State Building
Niagara Falls
Grand Canyon
Mount Rushmore
Golden Gate Bridge
Independence Hall & The Liberty Bell

I used the Get Info feature to add interesting facts as well as a picture for each stop. I used heading 2 tags to enlarge my text and tag to add photos from my Flickr account. I used many of my own photos as well as Wikimedia and Flickr Creative Commons for others. Students read the information at each stop and answered questions about the readings. High readers were paired with lower readers as needed. The students were engaged from start to finish.